Sunday 21 August 2011

What Fresh Hell Is This?

I've been away again.

Yes, there are still plenty around. I can heartily recommend this website, so do bookmark it for future reference, it may come in very handy.

While I'm on, Mudgie has highlighted a remarkable piece at the Sunday Telegraph.

Two mothers were refused alcoholic drinks in a pub because the barman said it would "inappropriate" for them to drink in front of their children.
Now, you can be as cynical as you like about the story being reported by two women who run a PR company, or that one of them is married to an actor with a new film out. But that's not the aspect which is particularly scary here.

The comments beneath are, though.

"Drinking alcohol is not a good thing. Being in charge of children after any amount is not a good thing. Good on the barman! Why cannot these people exist with a soft drink only? Are they alcoholics - cannot go without ANY alcohol for one month?" Markus Petx 7:11am

"Quite often, parents will address their craving for alcohol and 'forget' the existence of their offspring who, being understandably bored in an adult environment, charge round the place annoying the responsible drinkers. Well done that barman, standing up for responsible parents who don't go on the booze with their children." jimmyclaret 8:00am

"Could it be that the barman was merely trying to avoid the situation where an adult will buy alcohol for "themselves" and then let the child drink it once out of sight of the bar staff?" katb 8:46am

"Should you drink during the day in front of your kids for no reason other than refreshment? Probably not." Stephen Le Mansell 9:30am
So many excuses and wild hyperbole, and that's without the two Alcohol Concern stooges with their cut and pasted soundbite.

"There is some logic to the barman's attitude. You are not allowed to be drunk in charge of a motor vehicle, so why should it be acceptable to be drunk in charge of children??" by Mogulfield 8:08am and KOKO at 10:38am
There were, happily, some people who kinda get how this is going.

"If the 2 mothers whilst sitting outside drinking their soft drinks had lit up cigarettes, would he have chastised them for smoking in front of their children too?" jpotter 9:11am
Because this really is another side to the same coin. The same denormalisation template is being used, after all.

The reply was prompt and highly telling, horrified exclamation mark and everything.

"We can only hope so!" Stephen Le Mansell 9:12am
Divide and conquer/rule. Call it what you like, but the anti-smoker movement has afforded every single issue nutjob carte blanche to interfere in any aspect of your life that they don't personally agree with.

All funded generously from your taxes.

Next time any politician talks of 'anti-social behaviour', you might like to remind them that their own policies and grants shovel cash towards the most spiteful, mentally-unbalanced, and anti-social people this country has the misfortune to accommodate.

Let the buck stop where it belongs, eh?


19 comments:

Curmudgeon said...

Well, those comments bear out the point I was making about the stigmatisation of alcohol. And if you take some of them at their word, you wouldn't be allowed to have a single half of lager until your children had reached 18.

Dick Puddlecote said...

That's exactly the stage they are now at with tobacco. It's the next logical step and, as we know, anti-alcohol is being coached into how to do the same with beer.

Unfortunately, some will never see it until the juggernaut has run over their drinking arm.

Anonymous said...

All bar staff should be told to refuse drinks to people that take their kids in a pub.

That might keep the brats out of what I consider ADULT venues.

Then perhaps we can go back to the time when pubs were for (adults drinking, smoking and socialising) and not the revolting sterile creches that they have become.

Xopher said...

Why are kids in the bar? There used to be laws against it and we didn't smoke as much outside or in children's areas.

The world's gone mad - effective, time served social practices have been ditched by highly paid 'experts' who haven't a clue and totally ignore the people's commonsense for the sake of their paid for righteousness.

Social damage by the bucket load but Scottish smoking rates show how little has been achieved by damaging and draconian legislation.
See http://f2cscotland.blogspot.com/2011/08/driving-smoking-down-yet-further-in.html

John Pickworth said...

I don't think I recognise my fellow citizens any longer...

Did they sprinkle Mary Whitehouse's ashes into the public water supply some time back???

Did they? Did they?

:)

Anonymous said...

It is getting worse, I was sitting outside having a cigarette and minding my own business when this woman walked past and told me should not be smoking in public. My immediate instinctive reaction was to tell her she she shouldn't be seen in public as she was obese. A bit mean but since when did a total stranger get the right to tell another woman what she may or may not do? still she moved away fast for her weight!

Anonymous said...

I went out for lunch with some friends yesterday to a pub. Would you beleive there was a children's birthday party going on there (like about 15 x 10 year old kids)! As I trudged outside into the blustering wind for a cigarette, I did think what an upside-down world we now live in, where the kiddies get to take over the pub while the adults have to go outside to smoke. Hideous.
Cherie

Leg-iron said...

John... second hand righteousness from the bitter whitehouse ash? Could be.

Oh well. I suppose I'd better expand the homebrew operation. And maybe get one of those James Cagney hats.

Just to be ready.

Eric Crampton said...

I love that the University Staff Club here at Canterbury is a great place to bring the kids. They learn how people are supposed to drink (a few pints among academics, no loutishness) in a friendly environment. Ours have been there pretty much every Friday since birth, barring when the place has been closed due to earthquake....

Anonymous said...

The knobhead guy down the local store refused to sell a packet of Rizla to some student as they had no ID ! -Fucking nonsense!
We are going to have to kick this bullshit into touch.

Weekend Yachtsman said...

Anon 09:10 - you may not know it, but Rizla papers come under the same rules as tobacco, so if the shop-person sold them to someone under-age they'd be in line for a hefty fine and (inevitably) dismissal if they weren't the proprietor.

So you can kind of understand the attitude, especially as you never know when any customer may be a State "agent provocateur" - yes, they do use them.

The whole world has gone mad.

Bucko said...

Yes this barman is a complete knobhead but the parents in this story aren't too bright.

They were served their childrens soft drinks which they paid for then sat and waited for their kids to drink up.

They should have kicked up a stink before walking out and not paying for anything.

Anonymous said...

There a variety of cures for
interfering ,busybody,nannified
puritans,the soul sapping perverts
who hate the enjoyment of others.
Headbutting,kneecapping,ass kicking
severe head slapping, but my favourite,much beloved by my
glorious heroes , The Holy Office
of the Inquisition,
a slow roast on the village green.
Hopefully soon the ordinary will turn nasty and rid this pestilence
from our midst.

Sick of waiting

Little Black Sambo said...

If the landlord has authority to forbid or allow the drinking of alcohol, why has he not the authority to forbid or allow the smoking of tobacco?

Edwin Greenwood said...

The Britannia at the Monument? Dreadful place. Full of spotty office juniors giving it large to impress the giggly bottle-blonde tarts whose pants they are hoping to get into.

Never mind refusing them a drink, social services should be considering taking these women's kids into care to protect them from criminal bad taste.

Ian R Thorpe said...

Sound like the Thought Police have formed a SWAT team.

Anonymous said...

We make a big mistake arguing with the fascists and control freaks the pros and cons of alcohol, tobacco etc., because the thing being denormalised is irelavant to them. It's the denormalisation process itself that gives them their buzz.
So don't bother dusting off your arguments which demonstrate why alcohol or tobacco consumption should be down to personal choice because these people won't listen. It would be far more effective, and give far more personal satisfaction, to ignore their words and just hit them around the head with a baseball bat.

Anonymous said...

Something like this?


Bullies' Brains Light Up With Pleasure as People Squirm - 2008

"The brains of bullies—kids who start fights, tell lies, and break stuff with glee—may be wired to feel pleasure when watching others suffer pain, according to a new brain scanning study.

The finding was unexpected, noted Benjamin Lahey, a psychologist at the University of Chicago and co-author of the study, which appears in the new issue of the journal Biological Psychology. Jean Decety, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, is lead author of the study.

The researchers had expected that the bullies would show no response when they witnessed pain in somebody else—that they experience a sort of emotional coldness that allows them to steal milk money with no remorse, for example.

Previous research had shown that when nonbullies see other people in pain, the same areas of the brain light up that do when the nonbullies themselves experience pain—a sign of empathy, Lahey said.

The new research showed these areas in the bullies' brains were even more active than in the nonbullies.

But the bullies' empathetic response seemed to be warped by activity in the amygdala and ventral striatum, regions of the brain sometimes associated with reward and pleasure."


It takes a certain kind of person to force hospital patients and the elderly out in the rain.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Edwin: Sounds like my kind of place. ;)

John East: Would you recommend a make or grade of wood?